Sapa

Mercifully, a complete power outage ends the TV fun downstairs and the whole family finally goes to bed. However, proudly continuing the tradition of sleeping like crap, I manage to wake up a few times during the night. Once due to loud dog fights and once again due to a rooster with a distorted concept of time (seriously dude, 3AM is not a signal to wake up and sing your lungs out). Everyone is up around 8:00 for a quick breakfast and an even quicker goodbye to the host family. The man of the family shows up again to briefly shake everyone’s hand and that ends the extent of our interaction with the Red Dzao.

As we set out on the last hike of our three day Sapa tour, it becomes apparent that Katka and I have gradually become the charity cases of the group. Katka is still wearing Belgian girl’s scarf to protect her neck from going up in flames. The same Belgian girl lends me her rain-cover for backpacks, because the scary grey clouds around us seem to mean business! Her boyfriend lends me his socks, since after breakfast I discover that one of mine is mysteriously missing (a new Bermuda Triangle?). Finally, the British couple keeps offering Katka a T-shirt, because hers hasn’t managed to dry overnight and she only has her “Batman” poncho for cover.

At some point we actually consider asking for donations…

On the hike we’re accompanied yet again by a huge group of Black Hmong. We get to a fork in the road and our vodka-happy guide gives us a choice of going the “easy” or the “hard” way. As soon as he gives us the choice he immediately decides for us by basically saying that the “hard” way is a no-go due to the massive amounts of rainfall that came during the night. The “hard” way gets extremely muddy after rain and he makes it sound like we’d be practically swimming in mud to get anywhere. Unsurprisingly, everyone votes for the “easy” way and we continue.

While the “hard” way would have taken us up some steep slopes and probably resulted in the same slip-n-slide experience as yesterday, the “easy” way just follows the road. Along the way we come across some young kids riding buffaloes, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“Did someone call a cab?”

We reach a waterfall where everyone takes some obligatory pictures. While our group is busy taking photos of each other in different configurations, we notice a few other groups arriving from the direction of the “hard” way. They drop down from steep slopes like SWAT teams (minus the cool gear and athletic skills). They’re completely covered in mud and sweat, so we’re immediately happy for our choice of the “easy” way.

Close to the waterfall lies an old wooden suspension bridge. It’s exceptionally narrow and looks rather worn out. It leads to a dead end rock. It’s probably somewhat dangerous and completely pointless to cross the bridge. Naturally, we all take a trip there and back, one person at a time. We film each other performing this “feat”, secretly hoping that some minor-yet-hilarious incident would make one of us an instant YouTube sensation.

I must admit it’s quite an exhilarating experience to walk down a derelict wooden bridge hanging well above a rushing stream of water. For a brief moment I even imagine I’m Indiana Jones on a quest for skulls, grails, Chupa Chups lollipops and whatever else he usually hunts for. Then I’m told by the rest of the group to put down the whip and fedora and stop being a jackass, so I return to solid ground.

They’re just jealous of how awesome it makes me look…

After I’m finished with my crazy antics we leave the “bridge walking” area. Upon exit we are promptly charged a token fee for having used the bridge. I guess “risky wooden bridge crossing” is the Hmong version of a theme park ride.

We settle down for a quick lunch of noodle soup and bananas at a nearby cafe. We’re surrounded by kids and I hand out the rest of my candy and chewing gums to them. The Belgian scarf-woman has a bunch of balloons that she inflates and gives to the kids. The kids are mesmerized. After lunch we’re picked up and driven back to our Fansipan View Hotel. The road is narrow and slippery and there’s plenty of traffic, so the ride takes a while.

Back at the hotel we’re directed to a separate room with some showers, where we get to shower and repack. While waiting for our bus to Lao Cai we go online to pick out and book a hotel for ourselves in Hue. We settle on Ancient House Hotel, which, despite its hardly promising name, looks quite modern, comfortable and affordable. Unless its pictures are Photoshopped and reviews are doctored (you just can’t be paranoid enough these days).

At 16:30 we’re picked up by a mini-bus. We’re sharing it with the same Danish family that accompanied us on the first day. Only this time we’re also joined by five other people. The bus is overbooked and the only way everyone’s luggage can be squeezed in is by stuffing all of us into the car first and then piling our bags on to and around us. (CONTINUE TO PAGE 2)

I’m up at 6:30, kept awake by the famously loud kids, flushing of toilets and nearby construction. Vietnam is not the place to catch up on those Zs if you’re a sensitive sleeper like myself. At 8:30 we have a quick breakfast with more pancakes and “pearls”. At 9:30 we join the same two guides from yesterday and three other couples (four Belgians and two Brits).

It starts raining just as we leave. Katka has a green poncho to protect herself from rain, I have nothing. Our hotel sells cheap disposable raincoats, but I stubbornly decide that I’ll be fine without one. Raincoats are for sissies (and, you know, reasonable people who don’t want to get soaking wet). As we walk further from the hotel the rain intensifies. I am getting drenched and am also the only idiot not wearing some sort of rain-gear. On our way out of Sapa we pass by a market, where the same cheap raincoats can again be purchased. However, I still don’t buy one, because why change a dumb decision after you have recognised it as such?

“I don’t need your help! I totally meant to get stuck waist-deep in the snow. Thanks for asking, though.”

We nickname Katka’s poncho “The Batman Poncho”, because it sort of looks like Katka has bat-wings when she wears it. So there’s certainly some resemblance to Batman (if Batman were a short blonde woman and wore green oversized ponchos). Thanks to my trusty Osprey backpack all of our stuff remains dry. The same cannot be said about me.

Rain also makes the narrow paths we have to navigate extremely muddy and slippery. This isn’t helped by the fact that the area is quite hilly and at any given time we’re either climbing a peak or trying to avoid helplessly sliding down from one. Every few moments the journey is interrupted by one of us foreigners slipping and either falling on his/her ass or grabbing frantically at the nearby people.

Thankfully, we are again accompanied by a large group of Black Hmong women. They are extremely good at negotiating the slippery slopes, despite wearing simple home-made plastic sandals. They help everyone through especially tricky parts of the journey and prevent us from tumbling down on numerous occasions.

In between our falling down and swearing in frustration we try to admire the beautiful scenery. Mountains stretch as far into the horizon as we can see. Every time we climb a hill we get treated to a new breathtaking sight of green valleys and a multitude of rice fields. We keep bumping into colourful locals and various animals. It’s like being in the middle of a painting, but, like, in 3D. Poetic, eh?

A small group of foreign infiltrators is taken into custody by the Hmong police force, armed with umbrellas and deadly handicraft skills

Soon we reach a small village of the Black Hmong, where we feel obliged to buy something from them for all of their help. What can I say, their strategy clearly works! Katka buys some bracelets and a bag to bring home as gifts. We have drinks and snacks at a local restaurant, where I befriend a cat. Or, more accurately, the cat claims me as hers and doesn’t leave my lap until we’re done with the meal. In the restaurant with us is a large group of Danes, seemingly a handball team. There are only like one hundred Danes in the world and it appears they’re all in Vietnam.

Our final destination is the Red Dzao village of Ta Va, where we’ll be sleeping over with a host family. Shortly before our arrival Katka and I both realise that our necks are completely burned. Katka gets a scarf from one of the Belgian girls to protect her neck. I get a towel and some toilet paper wrapped around mine – a creative solution courtesy of Katka. I stay in this partially mummified state until we reach Ta Va.

The Dzao live in notably better conditions than the Black Hmong. We are surprised to find electricity, proper showers, a TV and other luxuries that we haven’t seen in the spartan houses of the Black Hmong. The visiting tourists have proper sleeping mattresses with mosquito nets up on the second floor. There’s even a crooked pool table. I attempt to play a game with one of our guides, but quickly realise that it’s hopeless trying to be accurate when the table is sloped and the balls are so dented they’re shaped like crushed soda cans.

There’s a reason wheels are not shaped like this…

Katka and I take a walk around the village to see what’s there and to meet some locals. We discover a small stall that sells bracelets, bags and different handicraft for one-fifth the price we’ve ended up paying to the Black Hmong. Ouch! Were convinced that the woman is forgetting a zero somewhere, up until Katka buys a few more gifts for the family back home and we actually pay the low price.

Later on we bump into a girl of 12, who tags along with us on her way home. Her English is quite good and she tells us her name is “True” (presumably because she tells it how it is, for real yo!). Before she turns to her house she attempts to sell us some handicraft, but we’ve had our share of purchases for the day. When she keeps insisting I turn the tables and attempt to sell her one of the bracelets we bought from the Black Hmong. She finds this amusing and names a ridiculously low price. Surprisingly, I don’t manage to sell the bracelet at a mad profit (or at all).

On the way back we see a very drunk local who is singing incoherent songs. At least I assume they’re incoherent, since I haven’t learned enough Vietnamese to know for sure. He’s followed by a few people who make futile attempts at bringing him home. At some stage the man falls down and continues to sing while on the ground, refusing to get up. It’s comforting to know that thousands of miles away from Denmark drunk nights out end so similarly. (CONTINUE TO PAGE 2)

We’re woken up at 5AM upon arrival to Lao Cai. It takes us a while to realise that we’ve already arrived so we’re the last ones to hurriedly pack up and leave the train.

As soon as we step out we’re approached by a guy who offers us a bus ride to Sapa. We almost stupidly agree, because we assume this is part of our packaged tour. The only reason we realise it’s not is when he asks us where we’re heading. Then we try to get to the main exit of the Lao Cai station. On the way we’re approached by many more drivers offering trips to Sapa. A conservative estimate puts their number at about ten million, but there’s a slight degree of error involved in that calculation.

At the exit we’re met by a man holding up a sign with my name. My last name is misspelt in only two places, so it’s close enough. I’m used to it being butchered in unpredictable and hilarious ways.

“Did you just call me Iron Maiden?”

We get into a mini-bus that we’re sharing with a few other foreigners. It’s very nice to be so far away from home, with nothing to remind us of cold, rainy Denmark…except with us in the mini-bus is a Swedish backpacker and a Danish family of four. OK, you win this round, fate!

Sapa is located high up in the mountains, at an altitude of 1600 metres, and the only way to get there is via a winding mountain road (unless you’re planning to engage in some creative parachuting manoeuvres). The road, in some sections, is just wide enough to accommodate two cars. Our drive up takes almost one hour, during which we admire a beautiful view of mountains submerged in fog and basked in sunrise.

The Swedish backpacker, Jonas Petter, decides to share his (mis)adventures with us. He had a back stomach flu and managed to miss out on a lot of travelling due to being stuck at the hotel, near a toilet. Thankfully, before he begins to give us a detailed account of his symptoms, the father of the Danish family joins in to share their experiences in Cambodia. I try really hard to follow the story, but I’m distracted by the father’s uncanny resemblance to Al Bundy. I half expect him to finish every sentence with “Isn’t that right, Peg?”.

…and that’s Ed O’Neill to YOU!

We arrive at the Fansipan View Hotel, which is so called because its rooms offer views of the Fansipan mountain (I bet that took you by surprise). As soon as the mini-bus stops it is surrounded by a group of Black Hmong women, on a mission to sell their handicraft. Our tour guide tells us that they usually find a “nice person” and follow that person until they wear him/her down. So, essentially, he’s telling us to act like assholes if we’re not interested in handicraft.

We’re served a nice breakfast at the hotel with noodle soup and pancakes. The menu tells us we can choose to have our pancakes with either apple or “pearl”. I’m not sure how pearl pancakes would taste, but I’m sure it’s a crunchy experience. Our room is available early, so we check in at 7:00. We attempt a quick nap prior to our mini-tour. This is successful for Katka, but not so successful for me. There are kids playing outside. Kids can generally be quite loud, but here in Vietnam they come with built-in megaphones. I’ve already discussed the general noise level in Vietnam in an earlier post.

At 9:30 we depart for today’s mild hiking trip to nearby villages. We’re only six people: Katka and I, a Canadian couple (Danni and Amanda) and two local guides. We exchange our experiences and travel plans with the Canadians. It seems we’ll be following in their footsteps – they are heading out to Hue by plane and we’ll be doing the same trip by train in a few days. Danni and Amanda have already had their homestay with the Dzao (Yao) people. They warn us about the dangers of rice wine, which we’re likely to be served during our homestay. Danni apparently had a bit too much while trying to bond with the host family.

Alcohol – real life’s Google Translate!

At the beginning of the trip we’re joined by a group of Black Hmong women. I have a conversation with one of them. Her name is Ping and she’s carrying her 2 month old kid called Phun in a home-made fabric baby carrier on her back. Ping’s English is surprisingly good, especially considering that she has only practised it by talking to tourists.

In the meantime, Katka chats to two other women and receives their approval of me as a boyfriend. That’s because my rugged good looks translate well across all cultures. As we approach a track leading to the village of Cat Cat the Black Hmong leave us. They cannot get in without tickets. They make us promise that if we buy anything it should be from them. Damn, I guess we weren’t convincing enough at being assholes. (CONTINUE TO PAGE 2)

We’re up at 9:30 and go down to catch breakfast before 10:00. Before we’re able to make it to the restaurant we’re ambushed by the receptionist who starts telling us the plan for our evening departure to Sapa. She doesn’t get far before she is interrupted by Mr. Son (hotel manager). There’s some visible tension between them and the woman walks off muttering something in Vietnamese (if we listened closely enough I’m sure we could have learned a few useful swear words). I guess she’s not happy about Mr. Son “stealing” us, now that we’ve reached our VIP status. Mr. Son tells us that everything’s been arranged for our trip. We should be back by 19:00 to be driven to the train station where we’ll take a night train to Lao Cai as part of our journey.

We set out to look for a place to stock up for our homestay with the tribes in Sapa. We’ve done some research on staying with e.g. Hmong and the recommended gear is:

Toilet paper (a rare item in most homes of Hmong and other tribes)

Token presents for kids (pens, pencils, notepads, candy)

A gift for the host family

This kind of diverse shopping list is best served by a supermarket. One problem: there aren’t any supermarkets. It does not seem to be a very common store format around here. There are a couple of specialised stores selling toiletries and similar household items, but that’s not enough to cover the full list. Lonely Planet mentions a proper supermarket called Fivimart. What it doesn’t mention is that Fivimart will only make itself visible during the full moon in uneven months to those whose minds have reached a higher plane of consciousness. It’s entirely impossible to locate and the map provided by Lonely Planet points to a wrong location.

“So, can you see the final destination coordinates, marked with a giant “X”? Well that’s not it!”

After unsuccessful attempts at finding the elusive Fivimart we settle on a smaller hypermarket that has most of what we need (except pens, pencils and notebooks we thought of giving to the Hmong). We get a big and fancy looking box of candy for the host family and a few small packs of candy to hand out to kids. We go back to the hotel to pack and check out. We leave our bags at the reception and go out to catch a few more Hanoi “must sees”.

First stop is Lenin Park. Or, more Vietnamically (that’s totally a word, I swear) – Lê-Nín Park. Vietnamese have a compulsion about splitting multi-syllable words into smaller words or at least hyphenating every syllable, something I’ve already explored in my earlier posts. Lenin Park is clean and rather small. It’s full of people exercising and men playing that same mysterious game with long narrow cards that we’ve seen on our first day.

Right across the street from the park is the Flag Tower of Hanoi. It…towers…over 40 metres above the city. We turn onto a road to the right of the tower and make our way to the Presidential Palace complex. The streets here are much wider than in the Old Quarter and with far fewer people walking them. In fact, the only people around are stone-faced guards standing by giant gates to the Ministry of Defence. Katka wisely decides not to take any pictures here, because our travel plans don’t include a trip to prison on espionage charges.

To really teach you a lesson they use your own camera to take your mugshot

The whole area is filled with imposing government buildings and embassies. There are guards on every corner and guides by every building. What I’m saying is: there are quite a few guards here. Most houses have cars parked by them. Owning a car here is a sign of wealth and bad spacial awareness, since the majority of roads in the Old Quarter can probably accommodate around half a car at best.

We make it to the Presidential Palace, but finding a way inside proves tricky. There are many different gates, but only one of them is the “official” entrance, so it takes us quite some time to walk around and find it. Inside the “park” we find that we’re limited to exploring only a small area of the premises. We can look at the Presidential Palace but not come too close to it.

Essentially, we can only see the areas where Ho Chi Minh used to live. The dude loved the whole “keeping it simple” thing so much that he refused to live in the Palace itself. Instead he built himself a wacky Stilt House and surrounded it with bearded bush-dragons disguised as Santa Clauses:

Wwwwwaaaazzzaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!

We explore the area and check out the Stilt House, mango road, an older house where Ho Chi Minh lived earlier, a lake full of carp and a small museum with some Soviet cars Ho owned. “Pimp My Ride” wasn’t that big of a thing back then, so the cars range in colour from grey all the way to black.

Outside of the Presidential Palace enclosure is the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. Here Ho himself lies in an embalmed state, waiting to spook faint-hearted visitors. We only admired the building from the outside. Not because we’re faint-hearted, but because we’re scared senseless of Ho’s ghost haunting us in the night.

Nearby is the One Pillar Pagoda, which is a small wooden temple built on a single stone pillar. It’s supposed to resemble a lotus blossom, but instead my brain conjures up an image of Baba Yaga’s Hut on chicken legs. I’m crazy like that. Right next to it is the Ho Chi Minh Museum. Again we only explore the building from the outside, since by now our brains are thoroughly ho-chi-minhified (also, totally a word). (CONTINUE TO PAGE 2)

Sleep comes only at 4AM, despite my sincere efforts to count sheep and other farm animals. Alarm goes off at 7AM – damn it! Down for breakfast at 7:30. Breakfast consists of a small side buffet with snack-sized foods, fruit and sweets. In addition there’s coffee and tea and a choice of regular milk as well as sweet condensed milk. Finally, there’s a menu with a limited selection of dishes, from which one can be picked by each guest. Everything is fresh and delicious.

We book the 3-day Sapa trip with our friendly receptionist. It seems that our prolonged stay and the fact that we’re arranging numerous trips through the hotel has bumped us to “VIP status”. So when we ask to book tickets for a train to Hue upon our return from Sapa it is the hotel manager, Mr. Son, himself that shows up to take care of it. He suggests we book a late afternoon train instead of the early morning one we originally requested. That will give us more time to rest and allow us to sleep overnight on the way to Hue. Mr. Son also says that he’ll give us a free room to use between our return from Sapa and our departure to Hue. At this stage I’m seriously considering to stay in Vietnam forever. Sure, on the one hand I’ve got my whole life back in Denmark, but on the other hand – free hotel rooms and sweet milk in my coffee! It’s a tough call.

“So let me get this straight – I don’t get paid to work here, but can have all the free coffee I want? Where do I sign?!”

At 8:00 we’re picked up by a minibus to be driven to Perfume Pagoda. The minibus stops at several other hotels to pick up the rest of the tourists. We’re joined by a Vietnamese man with his daughter, a young Spanish-Italian couple and an older French couple. After everyone’s picked up our United Nations delegation sets off on a 2 hour drive to the pagoda complex.

The drive is quite hectic. Our driver has an aggressive driving style and zig-zags through the motorbike masses, honking every few minutes. I have a sneaking suspicion that he believes he’s in a racing video game. At some stage during the drive the tour guide lady turns around and attempts to engage the group by introducing herself and giving us a sneak peek into the upcoming adventure. The group acts bored and largely ignores the guide. So, trying to be the nice guy, I listen to her with almost exaggerated attention, nodding and smiling after every sentence. At some stage she must start to think that I’m a bit retarded, because she wraps up her speech and stays mostly silent for the rest of the drive.

On the way to the pagoda complex we are surrounded by rice fields. I notice that many rice fields have tomb stones on them and ask our guide about this. She explains that up North it is quite common to bury family members on the plots of land the family owns. Down South the space is more limited, so the government enforces burials at central cemeteries. Here in the North you can grow rice and visit your family’s graveyard while you’re at it.

Even in her death my mother-in-law’s disapproving gaze is mocking my farming skills!

After driving through the rice fields and some small villages without proper roads (getting almost stuck a few times along the way) we finally arrive to the Yen River. An almost hour-long boat ride up the river is the only way to get to the Perfume Pagoda complex. We are divided into 2-3 person groups and each group is assigned a boat with a rower. Immediately, our attention is drawn to the curious rowing style employed here. Instead of sitting with their backs facing the front of the boat and pulling the oars towards them the rowers sit at the back and push the oars away from them to move the boat. This is not what we’re used to in the West. Maybe it’s an unknown variation of the Coriolis Effect?

Anything you can do we can do…in more a contrived manner

We get to sit in the boat with our female guide, which turns out to be quite useful as she shares some interesting trivia with us. For example, did you know that the Yen River is filled with many hundreds of boats at a time at the start of the Tet Festival? Locals swarm to the Perfume Pagoda in order to pray to the Buddha and to be cleansed, so that they start the new year from a clean slate. In their rush for this cleansing they rent out every boat possible and effectively block out the whole river. It’s like traffic jams in LA, but on water and without the road rage.

Another piece of information we pick up is about the typical conical hats popular in Vietnam and other places in Asia. The hats are usually made of palm or coconut leaves held together by bamboo strings. Apparently these hats do a lot more than just make you look extra fashionable and uber cool. They also offer sun and rain protection (and are especially quick to dry after rain). They can be taken down and used as fans when it’s very hot.

Finally, they can act as rather effective water filters. A hat owner can push one of these into a river tip-first and the hat will let the water through while keeping the fish, leaves and other river debris away. Then the lucky hat owner can use one hand to drink this filtered water, or maybe even dip his/her whole face in this pool of filtered deliciousness. I assume these hats can also act as pretty awesome Frisbees, but sadly I haven’t seen a lot of “hat frisbeeing” going on. Seriously though, that has got to be one of the most versatile yet simple items of clothing in existence. As long as you’ve got a conical hat and a Swiss Army knife you’re ready to dominate any Survivor series. (CONTUNE TO PAGE 2)

This summer my girlfriend Katka and I went on a three week trip to Vietnam. More specifically we went from mid-July to beginning of August. Even more specifically we went to Northern Vietnam with a “minor” detour to Central Vietnam and then back.

It just so happens that in exactly Northern Vietnam the travel period we’ve picked is considered monsoon season, also known as “holy fuck that’s a lot of water, let me go get my umbre…gulp gulp gulp”. It is essentially the worst possible period to travel through Northern Vietnam, but a great period for local raincoat peddlers – sales are up 247.51% (give or take). Check out the encouraging chart from VeloAsia.com:

“Soooo, those dark clouds are a good thing, right?”

For the record, Katka and I are not clinically stupid travel planners. And no, we’re not weirdos with an overdeveloped rain fetish. Although that last claim is on shaky ground, seeing how we live in Copenhagen – the place where Europe’s rain clouds come to hang out and throw parties. It simply was the only real window in our work schedules for this kind of trip. I know, stupid work. Stupid source of all our income.

Despite the bad timing, we have been immensely lucky to dodge most rain. The trip has been fantastic and full of adventures. Vietnam’s nature is breathtaking and there are stark differences between Northern and Central Vietnam, which made every day of the trip a unique experience.

Over the next few months you will see my extensive travel notes from the trip gradually appear on this very blog, complete with a good doze of unhealthy rambling. These will be in chronological order, because I am both annoyingly structured and not-Quentin-Tarantino.

Today I want to share with you some general observations about Vietnam that I find curious or amusing or…wait for it…both. So, without further ado (and in no particular order):

Observation 1 – Motorbike Safety

There are many, many motorbikes in Vietnam. Without any attempt at applying such concepts as “math” and “logic” I’ll put the number of motorbikes per person at around 5-6. Seriously though, motorbikes are as common in Vietnam as lack of quality acting is in any movie starring Keanu Reeves.

With such a copious number of motorbikes on the country’s busy roads, it is no wonder that safety is taken so seriously. Virtually every driver wears a helmet and many shops sell the latest advances in brain-saving gear. Case in point:

This helmet boosts your social standing AND protects your head from injury!

Thus, everyone’s head is always inside a protective hemisphere! And by “everyone” I mean “everyone over the age of 6”. Wait, what?! That’s right: while seeing a whole family with multiple kids on a single motorbike is a common occurrence, seeing those kids wear helmets is very rare indeed.

There are studies on the subject, showing that while adults wear helmets in 90-99% of the cases, children under the age of 7 only do so in 15-53% of the cases (depending on the study). From my observations the 15% figure is way closer to reality.

Wwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

A Dutch couple we’ve met at the end of our travels asked some locals about this. Turns out the main reason this happens is because it’s not mandatory for children under the age of 6 to wear helmets! And if the government doesn’t care enough about your child’s brain to make protecting it a law – why the hell should you?! I can only assume that the price of a kid’s helmet in Vietnam is more prohibitive than the cost of simply making another kid if necessary.

Also, apparently some Vietnamese sincerely believe that wearing helmets is outright dangerous for the kids, because it can “affect their necks”. I would think that head trauma from a traffic accident is a bit more damaging than some unproven voodoo effect helmets have on necks. But hey, I’m no brain surgeon (in case you thought I was).